Has anyone within the past month or so sold their entire stock portfolio and just gone with fixed income (CD/MM/ Treasuries) and wait for the tide to settle. I imagine this is easier with a IRA than in a taxable account from an accounting(tax) standpoint.

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I do understand wanting to DO SOMETHING. But I guess that doing nothing is the best I can come up with.

It's going to get better.

__________________5/17/2018: Retired a second time, this time from my volunteer Admin duties. After 10 years of being on the team, and 40,000+ posts, the time just seemed right. It has been such fun to work with all of our Mods and Admins and I plan to stick around as a regular member.

No I haven't sold anything. And I don't plan to either. Right now yields on cash, CDs and treasuries are very unattractive IMO, and treasuries seem pretty risky at the moment (LT treasuries are down almost as much as stocks YTD).

But, the bigger problem is when will you know that the tide has actually settled? Will you wait for the DOW to reach 10,000, 11,000, or 12,000 again before feeling that the recovery is underway?

I never understood this thinking - I don't mean it's not valid, but maybe I just don't get it. Hypothetically, say you sold stocks now - 'locking in losses' as you say. But then you put it in something that doubles (say) while stocks stay flat or continue to decline. Then you shift over to stocks again before they start increasing. What losses were locked in? Seems to me that the person who sits pat is the one locking in losses, day after day.

Yes yes, obviously you have to make good moves for this to work, but as an ER friend once told me, you always invest like you go shopping: buy stuff on sale.

OP: I did this two years ago, because I believed stocks were way overvalued. It's never too late to recognize the true value of an investment, I believe.

I never understood this thinking - I don't mean it's not valid, but maybe I just don't get it. Hypothetically, say you sold stocks now - 'locking in losses' as you say. But then you put it in something that doubles (say) while stocks stay flat or continue to decline. Then you shift over to stocks again before they start increasing. What losses were locked in? Seems to me that the person who sits pat is the one locking in losses, day after day.

Yes yes, obviously you have to make good moves for this to work, but as an ER friend once told me, you always invest like you go shopping: buy stuff on sale.

Timing the market only requires me to get it right twice each time. Now you want me to get it right twice and pick (guess) what other asset will beat the market in the interim ? Think I'll stick with an AA appropriate for my risk tolerance and automatically acquires what is on sale (relatively).

__________________"Hey, for every ten dollars, that's another hour that I have to be in the work place. That's an hour of my life. And my life is a very finite thing. I have only 'x' number of hours left before I'm dead. So how do I want to use these hours of my life? Do I want to use them just spending it on more crap and more stuff, or do I want to start getting a handle on it and using my life more intelligently?"-- Joe Dominguez (1938 - 1997)

Architect thinks he knows that equities will be lower in the future than they are today. He may be right for all I know.

Ha

I don't think I've said I think stocks will be lower, if I did I misspoke. What I believe rather is that stocks still aren't a good deal. They can go up this year for all I care, I don't think the risk/reward is worth it yet. But if they go down further then I'll invest again, because then I think I'll be adequately compensated for the risk I'm taking.

Off topic, it's interesting that I hear people on this board frequently make prognostications, such as 'Treasury bonds are going to get hammered' or 'yields are too low', but they don't get called out for that forecast. But if you make a judgment call on stocks people quickly remind you that you can't predict the future.

There is also a 5.00% NCUA insured 5yr CD from Community One though it requires either a trip to Vegas or a notary and a fax machine to join.

You start out by stating these are best "bank" CD's and then you list all those "credit unions". I know credit union CD's are insured but only by themselves, not the FDIC. If a credit union fails, you may be able to recover your money but I don't know how long it takes. Does anyone out there know the difference in the insurance of the FDIC vs the credit union's insurance program? I've got a $100k CD maturing next week and need a good place to park it.

I don't think I've said I think stocks will be lower, if I did I misspoke. What I believe rather is that stocks still aren't a good deal. They can go up this year for all I care, I don't think the risk/reward is worth it yet. But if they go down further then I'll invest again, because then I think I'll be adequately compensated for the risk I'm taking.

Off topic, it's interesting that I hear people on this board frequently make prognostications, such as 'Treasury bonds are going to get hammered' or 'yields are too low', but they don't get called out for that forecast. But if you make a judgment call on stocks people quickly remind you that you can't predict the future.

It's a discussion board, so people are likely to have different views about nearly any issue. The trick is to manage to discuss politely and express one's own views while staying within our Community Rules. I think that each of us has at least SOME thoughts or opinions that are not shared by the majority here. For me, it is my refusal to have a credit card, which I think is utterly brilliant and a wonderful and stupendously LBYM tactic, whereas 99.99999% of our forum members disagree.

__________________5/17/2018: Retired a second time, this time from my volunteer Admin duties. After 10 years of being on the team, and 40,000+ posts, the time just seemed right. It has been such fun to work with all of our Mods and Admins and I plan to stick around as a regular member.

You start out by stating these are best "bank" CD's and then you list all those "credit unions". I know credit union CD's are insured but only by themselves, not the FDIC. If a credit union fails, you may be able to recover your money but I don't know how long it takes. Does anyone out there know the difference in the insurance of the FDIC vs the credit union's insurance program? I've got a $100k CD maturing next week and need a good place to park it.

Most credit unions are insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). There are about 2% privately insured, so look them up on the NCUA website to make sure they are Federally insured. Same limits as FDIC and backed by the full faith and credit of the US Government like the FDIC (for what that's worth these days). Here's a link explaining NCUA deposit insurance. BTW, credit unions refer to deposits as "shares" - it's really the same thing, just a different term:

Off topic, it's interesting that I hear people on this board frequently make prognostications, such as 'Treasury bonds are going to get hammered' or 'yields are too low', but they don't get called out for that forecast. But if you make a judgment call on stocks people quickly remind you that you can't predict the future.

Since you brought the subject up, perhaps that sentiment is particularly focused on those who frequently and repeatedly remind us of their past successes and ability to time the market. A few examples (there are many more but this makes my point):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Architect

[Anybody join the millionaire club recently?]

With the action in the Treasury market last week I did finally - yay! With all the shared pain on this board recently I thought I'd start a positive thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Architect

This one was easy. The parallels with the 30's were out in plain sight for two years at least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Architect

Meanwhile I suspected a crash coming up and so sold and went to bonds.

If I had followed religion and stayed the course, today I would have lost money on every single purchase I made during my entire investing career...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Architect

Well it's too late now anyhow. One of my predictions from a year ago was that the Fed would start buying up higher on the yield curve. Guess what they announced today?

You didn't register on the forum until 11/19/2008 so how are we to confirm your predictive abilities?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Architect

... the deflating credit bubble wasn't too hard to predict two years ago.

And even the About Me section of your profile includes:

Quote:

Studied economics and investing, moved it all to long Treasuries before the crash of 2008.

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